


Like Madness

by I_llbedammned



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Love/Hate, M/M, Rival Relationship, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:11:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_llbedammned/pseuds/I_llbedammned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's December and Tony Stark intends to go for a drink with Rhodey.  That all changes when he finds the man that nearly killed him, Loki, standing there in the middle of the bar and no one notices but Tony.  Is Tony crazy or does the god of mischief have business with him?  Tony just can't rest and will do anything to find out what Loki's aims are.</p><p>Spoilers for Thor: The Dark World, and Iron Man 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It Starts

The wind blew fiercely through the New York City streets as Tony Stark walked through them, hands in the pockets of his trench coat. It was Christmas time and the city streets were decked out with lights and evergreen even this early in December. Commercialism at its finest, a fact that Tony gloried in as it deliberately contradicted what people thought the holiday was supposed to be about. It had been a somewhat relaxing night, though Tony couldn't help but feel the all too familiar boredom beginning to set in. He didn't party like he used to. He wasn't interested in going over the day to day transactions of his business. He didn't even have his suits to focus on any more. Tony knew that he should be happy and that he had everything in the world, but somehow he wasn't. He needed a challenge in his life.

Maybe tonight would be just what he needed to get his mind off of everything that had happened. It was going to be a good night with Rhodey, just like the old days before Tony took on the hero gig and Rhodey was busy defending the president. They were going to go incognito and just drink in a dive bar, cleverly named Dive, like two friends would after a long day of work. Tony even worked out some codenames for them to disguise them further. It was going to be a wild night, with any luck.

Tony entered into the bar and found in pleasantly warm and lit almost solely by Christmas lights and neon bar signs. The bar was packed with an assortment of people from all ages, all of them dressed in coats as they sipped their drinks. Rock music played over the whole bar, a nice change from the saccharine songs that filled every radio station at this time of year. He scanned around, looking for Rhodey and maybe some cute girls to flirt with for the night.

That's when he saw him there.

At first Tony missed the figure in the crowd, though how he could miss that tall figure even though he was standing in plain sight was something of a miracle. He felt his heart freeze in his throat as his head snapped back to confirm what he just saw. There, dressed in a black button down with a pair of jeans on, was Loki. The music in the bar faded to the background as his heart began to pound and panic began to shoot through his veins. Suddenly the room felt too small and it was hard to breathe. He instinctually called for his suit to save him once more from the monster in front of him. Several minutes passed while he gripped a nearby table, his knuckles turning white with fear, and unable to move. He called again for his suit and felt a sinking feeling settle into the bottom of his stomach as he realized the suit couldn't come for him. None of his suits could, ever again. He destroyed them all in a grandiose gesture of love towards Pepper.

Tony contemplated walking over to him, to punch him repeatedly in the face until the panic passed. "Hey, over here!" sounded Rhodey's voice and Tony's head flipped to face him. "I've been calling to you for the past five minutes. Are you still on this planet?"

"Yeah," Tony answered, turning his head back and finding that Loki had disappeared, "Yeah, sorry. Just had a long night."

"Yeah you lead such a hard life," Rhodey responded sarcastically, "You must have only gotten to sleep in 'til noon today."

Tony gave a self-aggrandizing sigh, "Well it takes a lot to look this pretty. I mean just look at this face. You think this comes easily?"

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

On a whim a day later Tony returned to the bar. He wasn't sure what he expected to find, but he knew that he had to check and see if his eyes were playing tricks on him. He walked in and scanned the room, finding it very empty at first. A sigh of relief escaped him before his eyes once more rested on Loki's face. At the bar Loki saw Tony, giving him a wink and smile before going back to chatting up the very pretty redheaded woman that was flirting with him. That was too much. Tony walked up to the black-haired figure with a purpose, roughly grabbing him by the arm. "What the hell do you think you are doing here?"

"I was waiting for you." the god answered with a grin.

"Do you know this guy?" the woman asked, clearly annoyed at being interrupted.

Tony gave a grin and yelled, "Yeah. This is the royal bastard that messed up New York City worse than any terrorist attack. This is Loki, god of lies!"

The woman looked uneasy and slowly the bar was becoming silent around them. Loki flashed the bar an apologetic look. "My apologies. He is quite mad, must be a bum off the street."

"Someone call the police or SHIELD or something and get this bastard out of here!" The bartender looked torn, unsure of who was the sane one.

Loki looked puzzled and stared at Tony, "No, you're not a bum. You're Tony Stark! You're Iron Man!" His face lit up in a parody of joy, but soon the whispers began to stir about the bar and then those whispers grew into yells. Cell phones flashed to life, recording everything that was unfolding. Tony let go of Loki's arm, suddenly noticing all the cameras and gave a smile. It took only a moment longer before people kept crowding around him, jostling him away from the god. They wanted autographs, they wanted to talk to him, a few of them just wanted to touch him. In the back of the crowd he could see Loki walk away smiling with his arm around the pretty redhead's waist. Tony tried to fight against the crowd and reach him, but there were just too many of them. Slowly Tony extricated himself to the alley, but it was too late. Loki was gone.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tony went back to the bar two days later, covering up his face the best he could with a scarf so he wouldn't be recognized. There, at the same exact spot, was Loki in a green button down and a black pair of jeans drinking a dark brown drink with an open seat next to him. Tony nodded, knowing this was a pattern. The next time he faced off against him, he wouldn't be alone. But before any of that happened Tony knew that he needed to make preparations.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tony flew into motion as soon as he got back from his short excursion to the bar. Well almost as soon as he got back, he did stop to throw his coat off. He made his way down the familiar steps to the basement of his newly constructed house. The basement was supposed to only be built for old times’ sake; after all he was no longer going to be testing suits down there. Pepper jibed him about his man cave, how he was going to fill the place with TVs so he could watch physics conferences with the guys on Saturday night, and Tony laughed about it. All the same Tony was very careful to build it just as cleanly as he did the old lab, just in case.

As he looked around he smiled and felt a feeling like home slip over him. He hadn't realized just how much he missed the lab until that very moment. There was something brilliant about the feeling of pressure, of the whole world counting on him. It was good to have a purpose once more. "Jarvis!" he called.

Jarvis' voice roared to life as all the lights in the lab began to turn on. "Yes, sir?"

"Get the screens up. I have a lot of work to do and not much time."

"Sir, Pepper will be most angry at this turn of events."

Tony glared at his computer screen, "Did I program you to help or to give me a lecture?"

Jarvis gave an audible sigh, "Understood, sir. Shall I get the welding tools and parts ready too?"

Tony smiled, "See I knew you had a good head on your shoulders."

Hours melded into one another as the unique mania that came with a purpose took him over. Time no longer mattered; all that mattered was the project. At one point Jarvis informed him that he should probably eat something and Tony had him order food. He ate and he worked, letting the boxes of Chinese food stay on the desk long after he was finished.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs and Tony looked up from welding he was doing on an arm piece for his newest suit. Pepper stood there, looking very upset.

"What's all this?" she asked, sounding more hurt than angry.

"Shit. What time is it?" Tony noticed that he had put no clocks in the lab, almost as if he designed it that way on purpose.

"It's four in the morning, Tony." She looked at the hologram of the arm piece he was working on, "But what is all of this? I thought you said you were done with the suits."

Tony put the arm piece down gently, resting the blowtorch on the table and making his way towards her, "Baby, you know I love you, right?"

"No, no Tony. Not again." Pepper's voice sounded pained and she shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Tony continued, "But I have to do this. For me," he held up a hand, "No, for us I need to do this."

"How is this for us?" She backed up as he moved closer, moving towards the door, "Tony I can't do all this again. Not so soon after everything that has happened. I need you to be there for me, not be there for the suits."

Tony's eyes looked pained, "I know that, honey. But in order to be there for you I need to be there. Something came up today and I need to do this, to keep us safe."

The look on her face changed from pain to fear, "What? What came up?"

"He's back."

"Who is back? Tony, you're scaring me."

He finally reached her as she stopped retreating, "Loki, the big bad god with daddy issues. The guy who fucked up New York City. The terror that made me like I am today. He's back and he's looking for me."

The look of terror on her face was enough to make Tony wished that he lied to her. Still he continued, "You need to get away from here Pepper. Get away from me, get away from the suits. While you're here, you're in danger. Don't you have those relatives in Miami you can visit?"

Her mouth closed, "Yeah, sure. I can stay with them for a bit." She picked up the phone and some tears began to form in her eyes. Tony put his arms around her and she shook a bit in his grasp. Her skin felt unnaturally warm and Tony wondered just how much of the Extremis they were able to get out of her system. When she looked up at him he swore he could see flames dancing in her eyes,"Tony, I don't want to spend all of my time living in fear, wondering where you'll be next. I don't want to spend all my nights waiting up for you and having nightmares that you'll be dead. I don't want to see you survive just to have to pick up all the pieces later. Just put the suits away, let the others handle Loki."

"I just can't do that Pepper. I can't walk away from this."

"He almost killed you once. Why give him a second chance?"

"Because this time I'll be ready for him. This time I know all his tricks and he doesn't have an alien dragon there to help him."

Pepper broke away from him, "Then you'll have to be ready without me." She was crying as she spoke, but she spoke strongly, "I-I don't know where that leaves us. But I can't live with you in panic any more. I just can't, it's too hard when I don't even know who I am anymore." She walked up the stairs.

"Pepper! Wait!" Tony called after her, but she didn't stop her stride. He paused looking back and forth between her retreating figure and the suit. With tears in his eyes he went back to the suits, anger and pain filling his heart. He had to make the bastard pay after all that he had cost him.


	2. Avengers Assemble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, after getting into a fight with Pepper, the battle with Loki has taken on a more urgent tone. How dare he walk into Tony's life and ruin everything....again! Tony will come, he will bring his friends and they will take him down, or so they intend to. The god of illusions might have more planned than Tony expects.

"Loki? Are you sure it was him?" Hawkeye asked on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah. I'm sure it was him. I looked into his eyes and I spoke to him. I'd know that voice anywhere."

"You spoke to him? Without anyone else around?"

"Well it was me and whole bar full of people. Why-” Suddenly Tony realized what he was hinting at, "No! I'm still me. He never got in my head."

"Tony, it's not weakness if he did."

"He doesn't have his staff of phallic extension. I'm in the clear." Tony paused, grabbing his head, "At least I think I'm in the clear. Shit I just don't know any more."

"That's reassuring."

"Listen, all I need to know is are you in to take him down?"

"Tell me when and I'll be there. I owe him a little something for the hospitality he showed me."

"Tomorrow night, 6 pm at the Dive bar."

"Want me to get anyone else?"

"The more we have, the better we are. We are dealing with a man with a god complex and a crap-ton of magic."

There was a pause as Hawkeye thought on the other end, "Probably shouldn't tell Bruce. There are far too many civilians in bar in case he loses control. Natasha is across the sea with Steve, no time to get them from Russia and they are too classified even for me to reach. But Thor is in town he should probably know that his brother is in town again. I'll stop there tonight." There was a pause, "Tony?"

"Yeah."

"Get some sleep. You sound like you haven't slept in days."

"Thank you, mother. See you there."

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That night his dreams were feverish. He saw the Chitauri's face again, laughing at him. He saw Loki standing in his office in Stark Tower. New images flooded his mind, ones surely his mind dreamed up. He saw the Chitauri holding Loki down, driving their nails into his flesh and tearing him apart ‘til he agreed to help them. He saw the light of the staff shining over Loki's flesh and feeling the same feeling of agitation and madness that slipped over all the Avengers when they were in the same room as the Tesseract powered staff. In the dream Loki turned towards him, "We still have to have that drink, Mr. Stark." Tony awoke with a start, feeling as though he had just been stared at through the dream. He tried to force himself back to sleep and couldn't bring himself to fall asleep, not with the nightmares being so close and the ghost of Pepper still haunting the bed. With a sigh he went back down to the lab to put the finishing touches on his new suit, hoping that it would hold together when it came to blows the next night.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Striding down the now familiar street in their superhero uniforms probably wasn't the most subtle of plans, but Tony wasn't going for subtle this time around. A show of force just might be what was needed to get Loki to show all of his cards.

Thor shook his head and looked upon Tony with sad eyes, "Anthony, I know that you mean well by this act, but I swear to you that your mind is playing tricks on you. It cannot be possible that you are seeing my brother in that bar. I saw him die with my own eyes."

"Yeah well, he's the god of tricks, right? What if all of that was just a big trick?" The feeling of security that came with wearing the suit was empowering. He felt the panic that should have been slipping over his heart fading to the background.

"Gotta say, that does sound like something he would do." Clint said, his hand moving uneasily over his chest feeling for the ghost of the wound left to him by Loki's last visit to New York.

"I cannot argue that it would not be like him." Thor conceded.

Tony looked through the window of the bar and saw Loki sitting there. He saw Tony and patted the stool next to him.

"There he is!" Tony called out, pointing through the window.

"Where?" Clint asked.

"Right there!" Tony called out, but as he turned back he noticed that Loki was no longer there, "Damn, must have moved."

Thor squinted, "I cannot see anything through this brightly lit glass. Let us go inside."

The three of them walked inside the bar. Loki smiled at Tony from across the bar. "There he is!" Tony said, powering up a repulsor beam to fire at him.

"That is not my brother. That is a woman." Thor said, forcibly lowering Tony's hand and upon a closer inspection Tony could no longer see Loki's smiling face there.

"But I swear I just saw him." Tony swore loudly.

"Let's fan out. This place isn't that big. If one of us sees him, call the others before engaging." Clint said and they searched the place up and down. They searched the bar itself and all the alleys surrounding the bar. Nowhere did they see a single trace of the trickster god about.

"As I said before, you cannot have seen my brother." Thor put a hand on Tony's shoulder, "I am sorry. I know you meant well, but I cannot look around for a ghost that I know will never show itself."

"We're all messed up and jumpy. Probably just your mind." Clint said, sounding tired, "It's a shame. I really wanted to give him a good punch in the face."

"But-But I swear-" Tony sputtered, for once at a loss for words. He sighed and gave up, knowing that he could not force them to believe his story. He knew what he saw with his own eyes, but maybe they were right. Maybe his brain was just a ticking time bomb and he was seeing things. Gradually they left the bar, leaving Tony to search the place by himself ‘til eventually the hour got to be too late and he also had to give up the search.

A man bumped into Tony on his way out and shoved a piece of paper into his gauntleted hand. Next time come alone. The note read. Tony looked around to address the man, but he had disappeared from view.


	3. Why Me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After having enough of Loki's tricks Tony decides to try him with an honest confrontation. It's the holidays and Tony wants to be sure that he can have a good time without thinking of the frost giant. For some reason Tony just can't stop thinking about the frost giant, especially since it is quite clear that Loki specifically wants only Tony to see him. Guess it is hard to forget a man that has convinced your friends that you are crazy and causes fights with your relationships.

A week before Christmas and Tony walked to the bar again. He hadn't been able to stop thinking about Loki since he first saw him. He just had to know why. This time when he walked into the bar a couple patrons recognized him, but they looked away quickly in fear and shame. Tony ignored them and made his way for the black-haired figure that was dressed in a light grey shirt with a black suit jacket and slacks. The man patted a seat next to him, turning his body towards is and Tony sat down, looking furious.

"So what the hell are you doing here?"

Loki turned to him with a smile, "I am getting a drink, Mr. Stark. Would you like one? I do believe you still owe me."

Tony looked like he was going to say no but Loki held up a finger, "Think about what you say very carefully Mr. Stark. It wouldn't do to have another mob of people swarming all over you here. I dare say I doubt your publicist could handle another scandal like "Iron Man terrorizes Dive bar."

Tony swallowed his pride and took off his coat, forcing himself to relax, "Yeah, sure. I'll get your drink."

Loki lifted his lowball of whiskey to Tony, "That's the spirit." He waved the bartender over and Tony ordered a double of whiskey straight up. It was going to have to be one of those nights that he had to be a little bit drunk to handle at this rate.

Loki waited until Tony had his drink, "So what was the question again?"

"What. the. hell. are. you. doing. here?" Tony asked, enunciating every word.

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific if I am going to answer you properly."

"What are you doing here? Here, in New York; in this bar."

"I thought that I would visit this city that I heard so much about. The last time I was here I never really got to appreciate the sights it had to offer."

Tony's face contorted in anger, "Yeah well we're a few down since the last time your friends had a party here."

"I know and that was an unavoidable tragedy."

"Unavoidable? No, earthquakes are unavoidable. This was all caused by you and your diva-sized ego."

Loki took a deep swig from his drink and ordered another, "I wish that I had as many answers as you do. Truly then I would be able to best Thor without even breaking a sweat." He looked,"Speaking of which, I wouldn't go trying to drag my dearest brother into our talks any time soon."

"Yeah I'm sure he'd be heartbroken to learn that you aren't as dead as he wished you were."

Loki winced and Tony smiled knowing that he struck a nerve. "Be that as it may, I think you'll find that is hard to convince someone that the dead live without a living person to show them. And I can assure you that he will never see me here. Neither will your delightful friend Hawkeye, or Nick Fury, or any of the other super friends you may be able to dig out of the wood work to chase after your crazed dreams." He cast a knowing glance at Tony, "And trust me, they do see your dreams as crazed. I know that you can hear the whispers in the air as well as I can. The whispers that you cracked and are beyond repair." Loki laughed a bit.

The smile vanished from Tony's face. "Why me? Why only show yourself to me of all people?"

"Because I always have had a fondness for broken things." Loki said, sounding both very tired and honest for once. He finished his drink and ordered another one to fill Tony's empty glass.

"I am not broken."

Loki chided him, "Oh come on. I have not spent all my time around destroyed civilizations and being lost myself to not be able to recognize the ruins of a man when I see one. It is there in the dark circles under your eyes, in the stubble on your face, in the unhealthy glitter in your eyes when you look upon me- as if hurting me will give you answers to the pain that is inside of you. I see it in the bluster of your ego as you put on a front for the world and for your friends, how you let no one close to you. I understand it because I see much the same things in me"

Tony looked at the man, suddenly noticing just how sunken in Loki's eyes look and how starved his face looked. It was as if Tony could reach out and break the man in two, though of course that was just the sort of ruse that he wanted everyone to believe. Some part of Tony almost felt pity for Loki when he heard him speak. They shared a silence together that was more weighted than any of the conversations that were going on around them from the other patrons of the bar. Understanding passed between them and in that split moment there was a connection.

"What would you know about being broken? You threw a temper tantrum because Daddy wouldn't let your crazy mind rule over his whole empire. I doubt you have ever suffered a day in your life. You grew up in a palace with people to watch over you after all."

Loki laughed bitterly, "And you haven't? You are Howard Stark's child after all; I doubt that you wanted for all that much physically." Tony was silent and Loki stared into his eyes, "But it's not enough, is it? All those riches don't mean a whole lot when there is no love behind it."

Tony felt a wave of pity well up inside of him and suddenly was all too aware of how close Loki was to him at that very moment, "We're nothing alike." He said, trying more to convince himself than because he believed it, "I have friends. I have a life built around me that I haven't driven into the ground with my ambitions. I have people that will care when I am gone, and not the ones that will celebrate my death."

"And yet you shirk them night after night to come be with me. Why is that?"

Tony grabbed his coat and moved for the door, "A misguided judgment. That's all." Loki shook his head, smiling to himself as he turned back to ruminating on his drink.  
\--------------------------------------------------------------  
On Christmas he held a party for the Avengers. He knew that most of them had no families to go back to, either because they were dead or deadbeats, and that it was very rough to spend the holidays alone. He was worried that no one would show up with the rumors of him being crazy flying around ever since the day he took Clint and Thor to Dive. His fears were without basis as everyone showed up. Thor even brought the mortal he was dating, Jane, along with him.

Even surrounded by friends it was hard for Tony to focus. He could laugh at the jokes and play dumb Wii games with some of the strongest humans, and demigods, that he knew, but for some reason his thoughts kept going back to Loki and the conversation they had. He was nothing like Loki right? He had friends, he wasn't known for lying all the time. They were nothing alike.

Try as he might he just couldn't fully persuade himself that trickster was fully lying to him. Even knowing that Loki was good at lying didn't stop Tony from seeing the truth in his words. Not to mention there was something very sincere in the pain he showed to Tony that night.

"I'm going out to get some more booze. Don't burn the place down while I'm gone."

"I make no promises!" Clint called after him.

The night air was bracing as he made his way down the street. Everywhere there were people rushing about going to those that they cared about most. Yet Tony was leaving them all behind just to make himself feel better about an asshole that nearly killed him.

The bar was depressingly empty when Tony entered into it, filled with exactly the sort of people you'd expect to be drinking in a bar on Christmas. Among the habitual drunks and the lost Tony found Loki, still drinking as if he had never left him. Currently he was mournfully looking down, swirling the liquid in his cup as if that would give him some answers about the future. He sat down at the bar next to Loki, "Hey, this is going to be quick, but can we talk outside?"

Loki looked up at him, the morose look falling off his face and a smirk coming across it. "But of course." He got up and Tony was struck by how tall he was as he strode out the door.

As they exited the bar snow flurries began to fall from the sky. "Okay this is going to be quick." Tony said, motioning Loki over to a corner where no one could hear them, "Don't tell anybody I said this and if you ever bring it up again I will deny it, but maybe you weren't wrong about everything you said the other night."

Loki smiled, as if he expected this answer, "I usually am not wrong."

"But that doesn't change anything, you know. Just because you understand me and I understand you, that doesn't mean I that we're going to be buddy-buddy. I still haven't forgotten what you did."

"So why come talk to me if this will not change anything?"

"Because maybe this is your second chance. You don't get many of those in life, but I want you to know I'm not going to blow your cover this time. I'm going to let you try to lay low for a bit and gain a bit of sanity back from whatever happened to you out there. I'm giving you a second chance to do some good with your life. Call it a gift of the season."

Loki smiled, leaning in closely to Tony and giving him a brief kiss on the lips. He gave Tony a wink and a smile, "Merry Christmas then, Mr. Stark."

Tony felt vaguely angry at the kiss, though he can't say that he didn't expect Loki to pull something and it wasn't entirely unpleasant. He looked up at the snow fall and hoped desperately that he hadn't made the wrong choice, he hoped that despite his cavalier attitude that Loki had indeed taken him seriously.

He felt his phone vibrating and he picked it up. "Yeah? Natasha are you drunk? I didn't know you could get drunk. Yeah, yeah I'll be back soon. There was a line for booze."

He walked back to the party, still feeling the frost giant's lip upon his and wondering if perhaps he would still be at the bar two days from now. One part of Tony screamed in the back of his head that there was something very wrong with him, that he had to be under a spell being weaved by something much bigger than him, that there was no way any of this meddling could result in any positive rewards for Tony. The other part of him wondered just how far he could push this risk, just how much he could try to learn from a god before it all came crashing down, how much he could learn of Loki's plans without the other one realizing what was happening. The smallest part still felt some sort of guilty pleasure at the kiss and Tony was very happy that he would soon be pleasantly drunk around friends so that part of his mind wouldn't win out.


	4. What Dreams May Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony goes back the New Year's party and is reminded of all the wounds that Loki left behind. Should he really be chasing after gods of mischief when so much damage was done to himself and to everybody he cared about?

Tony got back to the party, smiling at everyone with armfuls of booze. Clint couldn't drink too much, said that he didn't really fancy losing any more control lately. He passed it off like a joke, but Tony knew when someone was feeding him bullshit because he did the same thing. It took a bullshitter to know a bullshitter, or so the saying went.

Tony confronted him on the balcony to his suite, Tony being quite drunk by this time. The sky was clear and bright and Clint had stepped out there for a while. When Tony found him he was just standing there, staring out over the ruined skyline and fractured buildings that surrounded them. It was a grim sight and one that Tony tried to avoid looking at as much as possible.

"Hey, you okay?" Tony asked, "I was afraid you went and flown the coop." He laughed obnoxiously at his own joke.

Clint gave him an opaque look, "Haven't done so yet, though it's not for lack of trying. Can't seem to quite get away."

Something in Clint's voice sounded way too serious and Tony took that into account. "You know what makes those feelings go away? Booze!" He announced loudly, walking over and handing Clint a low ball glass with three shots of whiskey in it. Miraculously, none of the liquid spilled over the rim of the glass which Tony felt rather accomplished for doing.  
Clint took the glass without a word, taking a small sip from it.

"So what's actually going on? Girl problems?" Tony asked, using the railing of the balcony to lean on and steady himself.

"I just can't forget, you know?" Clint said regretfully, still staring out over the city.

"Clearly that just means you have to drink more."

Clint broke his line of sight with the city to cast a glare at Tony, "Your concern, as always, is touching."

Tony sighed, feeling the giddy buzz of alcohol leaving his system, "Well what do you expect me to say? None of us exactly are having an easy time of this. You don't face murderous aliens and people with daddy issues claiming to be gods without coming away with some scars." Against his will his heart started racing a bit as the memories he tried so desperately to run away from started sounding dimly against his drunken mind.

Clint gave a commiserating sigh, "I know that. But that green-eyed bastard was in my head which is something no one else can say, save for the good Doctor Selvig and I'm sure we all see just how well he is doing."

Tony laughed, "Well look at the positive sides, at least you aren't naked and running around in Stonehenge."

Clint a half-hearted chuckle, "I guess they don't make headlines about what I got in exchange. Being unmade, having that little voice in the back of your head come back screaming, is not nearly so fantastic."

Tony shook his head, "That's where you're wrong, Hawkguy."

That took Clint by surprise and he responded sharply, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You were never unmade." Tony pointed at his chest, "You had a psychopath in your head, but you were always you. No one would ever think that you did those actions; you were just a victim of mind control. Like a fucking prisoner that had Stockholm Syndrome, but with more lasers."

"Yeah, I guess." Clint seemed uneasy and dumped the rest of the booze that Tony had handed him off the balcony. "Thanks Tony. I mean it. You're a good guy. Probably why you don't fully understand, but you mean well."

"That, that was a perfectly good waste of fine whiskey. How else am I going to ring in the New Year?"

Clint turned and left, handing Tony the empty glass, "Jackass." he said with a smirk. 

New Years had been fun, it felt like family coming together, but all the same Tony could see the scars that everyone still bore from Loki's operation in New York. The conversation he had with Clint stood out in his mind with the uneasy niggling of a sense of dread that he just couldn't shake. It made him berate himself for ever thinking that it was a wise idea to go meet the god of mischief out in the middle of nowhere, by himself. 

And for what? Why did he do it? Why did he put the few close friends he had made in this world at risk? Why did he take the chance of talking to the man that had sent him into embarrassing panic attacks that still plagued him from time to time? Why did he take a chance with the man who had tried to kill them all? There were no answers that Tony found that made him happy, just a feeling that it was something he had to do.

That night he had no dreams, a blessed gift that the booze had given Tony. When he awoke to his own empty house the consequences of his actions hit him painfully in the chest. He wandered through the halls with only Jarvis to keep him company half way expecting to see a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and Pepper smiling back at him.

That night he gave her a call. The phone rang several times without her picking up. Her answering machine picked up the call and he left a message:

"Hey, Pepper. It's me. I just wanted to talk, to explain myself. I've been a jackass and you don't deserve that treatment. Just call me back okay. You know the number. I love you."

That night he slept fitfully. In his dreams he saw Loki again, dressed in a refined suit with a green tie that brought out the color of his eyes. "You think this is funny, just invading my dreams like this?"

Loki smiled, "I'm only here because you wished to dream of me, Mr. Stark. Surely you cannot hold me accountable for the wanderings of your own mind."

Tony's felt angry, but he knew the other man's words were true. He looked around at the candlelit tables and the bottle of wine on the table. "So what is all this? This supposed to be a weird date? You can't get a real date and you're coming to me in my dreams to get some?"

Loki laughed, "No, Mr. Stark. This is a promise. I'm waiting." Loki gave a wink and Tony awoke with a start, feeling.

He went back to the bar the next night, just on a hunch. Loki, or any facsimile of Loki, was nowhere to be seen. Tony drank a beer and waited around, but he never showed up. This was exactly what he should have expected, to be played with like a toy and then abandoned. It was what people like them always did when they got bored of something.

Yet something about that dream he had the other night stuck in his mind. Something told him that the god of mischief was not yet done with him, that he had just changed the game that they were playing so they could play for higher stakes. Tony knew that it was a bad idea to play games with a man who was hundreds of years older than you, a man who had been playing games for longer than he had been alive, a man who was known for lying.

But if Tony didn't pursue this he knew he would regret it. This was the chance to find out if Loki was still trying to control him and his friends just on a different level. This was a chance to see why everything had happened and a chance for him to keep an eye on Loki in a way that no one else could. As far as he knew he was the only one to know Loki was still alive, even his own brother believed him to be dead. There was a reason that happened, there had to be.

And maybe, a voice said in the back of Tony's head, maybe this would be a chance for real connection. Maybe this would be a chance to get to know what a monster thought like and try to make sense of the whole situation. This could be resolution and perhaps in time happiness. It was not something he could just pass up, even with the danger of being controlled.

He just had to find out where to move next. He hoped that night would bring him another dream to try and decipher and made a note to watch everything more clearly this time around.


	5. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony wakes up without a dream and tries to come to terms with his own emotions and the reality he is currently living in.
> 
> He keeps batting back and forth between the life he has been leading Pepper and his very mixed relationship with Loki as well as issues with his own sanity.

There was no dream that came to him that night. Not Loki, not Pepper, not a shattered memory of falling; nothing. He woke up in his bed, staring at the empty pillow next to him with an uneasy feeling. It was just his luck that the one time he had finally decided that he wanted to find Loki in the name of peace the god of mischief was nowhere to be found. It was like waiting for the storm to hit or waiting to hit the ground, just a feeling of dread that when you finally hit the ground the impact was going to shatter all of your bones.

For a few hours he paced the house like a caged animal. He listened to blaring metal music, watched TV, and just wandered around the house aimlessly while his thoughts raced. Emotions passed in and out; guilt for wanting to contact the man who tried to kill him and ruined Clint's mind, anger at the feeling of guilt because he was his own person and should be able to talk to who he wishes, heartache when he thought of Pepper sitting alone and her never coming back, disgust with himself for knowing that he was the reason why she left in the first place.  
Eventually his feet lead him down to the construction room. He took all of his feelings and poured them into a soldering iron, sketching out new ideas for suits and putting wires together in a way that he thought would make the ideas come to life. He wanted to make a suit that would be able to take an extraordinary amount of force without being injured. All he needed was a way to ensure that he would not be turned to jelly if something hit him very hard.

His phone rang and he stopped working on a new chest piece design to look at who was calling. Pepper. His heart jumped a bit in his chest as he picked up the line. "Hey Pepper," he said, trying to sound casual.

"Hello Tony." There was a few seconds of silence that felt grating, "How have you been?"

"Oh you know, the usual. Fighting bad guys, saving the world, making it look easy."

"Tony-" she started reproachfully.

He cut in, "Anything else is not really important. How have you been, that is the real question?"

"I've been surviving," she said, her voice cracking over the phone line, "My friend was kind enough to let me stay at her place for a few days."

"Which friend?"

"That's not important Tony. Just know that I am safe."

That did bring his heart a bit of comfort, though the idea of not knowing where she was made him a little uneasy. It felt evasive, like she was hiding something from him in her words. He let is slide though, in the interest of keeping things copacetic. "That's good. Safe is good. You know I know this great safe house if you ever want to come to it. It has armed guards, cameras, computer that check people's IDs and rumors have it that Iron Man especially watches out for the building. Who doesn't love Iron Man?"

She laughed, though the laughter sounded broken, "I do love Iron Man, I just don't like what he has done to Tony."

"Pepper, I know. I messed up. I should be paying more attention to you. I know this, I'm a jackass. You've known this for a long time."

"I'm glad you can admit that."

"Just come home, okay? We can work everything out after that."

"What about Loki?"

"You don't need to be worried about Loki. Pretty sure that he was just a vivid dream I had. No one else was able to find proof of him."

The answer did not seem to calm her at all, "So you did all that work just to chase a dream?"

"Yeah, pretty much. I have done worse for less of a reason. That's why you need to be here, to keep me in line, to tell me when I have gone over the edge."

"Tony, I'm not ready to come home yet."

"Then come to the Avengers Tower."

"Avengers' Tower?"

"Yeah, been tossing around a few name changes to Stark Tower, to celebrate the new construction. Seems pretty apt considering that we both wrecked and saved the old one. Certainly better than "Explosion Tower", which was the first idea I had. So you can come there and we can start working things out."

"How romantic of you to invite me to come to work."

"Well you know, you come up to my office after hours, we have a few drinks, admire the view, slip out of our clothes, enjoy each other's company. Trust me, I will make it romantic."

Pepper laughed, "With that wording how can I say no? I will give it a shot, Tony, but that's all I guarantee. A shot, a chance, that's all. I'll call you before I head over."

After that conversation even working on the suits did not come easily to him. Periodically he would slip up and burn himself and he would get angry at the object that had caused him pain. All that would be left is a pile of tangled wires and he would throw it in the recycling heap for Jarvis to deal with later and start anew, only to have the same results with a new piece. He couldn't work like this. With frustration he poured himself a drink of whiskey and sat alone with his brooding thoughts. At third drink he started to feel the veil of despair start to slip over him and he stopped drinking lest he end up doing something hurtful and destructive. There was still some hope, she didn't say she was gone forever. He could work this problem out, he just needed to find the right words to do so. At least she would be coming by the Tower one day, that was something.  
\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
That night as he slept, Loki came to him. Tony cursed loudly as he noticed he was in a restaurant that he has seen once before in a dream. Yesterday he had been aiming to come her and had found nothing, today he had been happy where he was and he ended up here. He studied the walls , red stucco with a Spanish design painted on it. Violin music played over the building sounding like it was coming from a live violinist in the other room. Tony turned around and saw that the restaurant was empty save for him standing alone among the red silk tablecloths. He walked over to the window and saw a many spired church with many faceted circular windows rising out of the city around it.  
"Is there a problem, Mr. Stark?" said a sibilant voice from behind him.

Tony whirled around and saw Loki's smiling face there. Tony was sure that he wasn't there the first time he turned around, yet there he was, "Your timing is fucking ridiculous, did anyone ever tell you that?" 

"I have been told on occasion that I am extraordinarily frustrating to deal with. Somehow I always seem to find the crucial moment to walk in on people."

"I try to find you and you are nowhere to be found. I try to avoid you and you come to me in my sleep easily."

"Oh? You were trying to avoid me, were you Mr. Stark? And here I was thinking that we were on friendly terms."

He felt angry at just how easily Loki was able to smile even after all of the things that he has done, both to Tony specifically and to the people that Tony cared about. "We will never be on friendly terms. Just because I haven't turned you over to Asgard to let them throw you into whatever dark hole you belong in doesn't mean that we are now suddenly friends."  
Loki laughed, "I am greatly wounded at your deception. Surely I don't know how I will recover. But if I may be so bold, why were you looking for me if we aren't friends? Or do you make it a habit to go looking in your dreams for people that you truly hate?"

"Sometimes when the fancy hits me, I do. It gives me a little bit of satisfaction to know that they are still in pain."

Loki's eyes flashed with a touch of real pain, "You wish to see me in pain, Mr. Stark. I am wounded. After the conversations we have previously had, I thought we were on better terms than that. I thought that we had moved past all these petty issues."

"Petty issues?!" Tony said, legitimately angry. "You walk into my life and start turning everything upside down and that is a petty issue?"

"I have turned your life upside down? What have I done? All I was doing when you found me was sitting in bar, attempting to lay low and forget about the outside world for a bit. I made no demands of you. I did not ask for your company night after night. I did not ask you to come to the bar with your friends to make a spectacle of everything. All of that was you, only you. I had no part in ruining your life."

Tony felt indignant, but as he fumbled to come up with things that Loki had done after the Chitauri had been sent back to whatever hole they had crawled out of he found himself coming up short. "Right because trying to enslave us all and almost killing me is nothing to you."

Anger brought a viciousness to Loki's smile, "Is this how you give second chances then? You claim to give them absolution and then bring up the past at every possible moment?"  
"I said I would give you a second chance, not that the whole slate was wiped clean. This isn't some sort of game that you can just restart over because it's fucking convinient for you. All a second chance guarantees is that you will be allowed to roam freely. That's it."

It was Loki's turn to be frustrated by the other one, he moved closer to Tony, "I have been more than kind to you. I have made no effort to control or influence any of your actions. I have been more honest with you than I have been with most others I have met. Surely that should count for something?"

"Call me crazy, but a few weeks is not enough time to consider the deaths of hundreds of people to just be water under the bridge. I just keep seeing their faces and can't quite get past that. Do you get what I mean? Do you ever feel that sting of guilt on your mind when you think of all the lives that were lost because of you?" Tony was smiling because he knew his words were getting under Loki's skin, "Or do you feel nothing because you can't? Maybe you're just a sociopath and can't feel guilt, the kind of person who would just laugh as the world burned down around him."

Anger moved across Loki's face and for a moment Tony thought that he had pushed him too far. He knew that this was only a dream, but the fear of Loki being able to reach out across the dream and still be able to affect him was a very real one. Loki moved inches away from his face, "Watch your tongue. You know not of what you speak."

Tony wouldn't back down, "Or what? You gonna kill me, gonna torture me, gonna tear my mind in two. Listen you're not the first psychopath to threaten me. You're going to have to get in line, pretty boy. There's a lot of people who want a piece of me right now" 

Loki grabbed ahold of him and pulled him forward roughly, pressing his lips to Tony's and biting him roughly. The pain felt good on his lips and Tony found himself sickening pleased by the kiss. Tony returned the kiss, pulling at Loki's hair hard enough to make him give a soft groan. Then just as suddenly as it has started Loki pulled away with a laugh, "I don't need to resort to mindless violence to get what I want. There are plenty of ways to get you to submit to me without me ever having to use force."

He looked out of the window at the many spired building in the city around them, "You have four days. I'm waiting."

Tony woke up with a start, feeling frustrated on a couple of different levels. He didn't know what he wanted, he didn't know what he should do. He knew now where the city was, at least on a visual level, but how would he find it out of all the places in the world? Should he even try to find it or should assume that it was just a dream and move on? What did it say about him if he chose to dream of kissing the man who tried to kill him? Tony rolled out of bed and made his way to the shower, hoping that the hot water would shake the remnants of the dream out of his head and give him clarity, though he knew that in the end there would only be more questions.


	6. Crossing the Rubicon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony talks with Rhodey about the troubles on his mind before making up his mind about what to do about Loki's offer.

Tony spent the next few days waiting on edge and it felt like waiting for a bullet to go off. He didn't know what he was waiting for, but he knew that when whatever ticking time bomb was in his mind went off it was going to do damage. There were so many things going on his life and all of it was coming crashing down in a few days: Pepper, Loki, and his own mortality all battled for control of his thoughts. So when Rhodey invited him out for drinks in the middle of the afternoon one day after the dream with Loki he gladly jumped at the opportunity to get out of the house that felt just a little too big and lonely for him to pace around by himself in.

He walked down the street wrapped in a black leather jacket while his thoughts whirled around him. Gradually he made his way to an old Irish pub, the kind where no one would be playing any loud pop music and you could actually talk in. As he entered in he was greeted with soft brown leather bar stools and carved Celtic knots in the bar. He saw Rhodey down the bar a little dressed in a green turtleneck. "Tony!" His friend greeted him with a wide smile that quickly faded as Tony walked closer, "What's wrong?"

"Why does something have to be wrong?" He asked, ordering a whiskey from the bartender.

Rhodey looked at him sternly, "Because you look like a damn raccoon with those circles around your eyes. Have you been sleeping?"

"Sleep? Of course I sleep. What would I have to worry about that would keep me from sleeping?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm asking," Rhodey held up his hands as he saw a snarky accusation stating in Tony's eyes, "As a friend, not as someone trying to sell you therapy or as government agent. I'm just worried, you've been acting stranger than normal lately."

The sharp burn of whiskey went down Tony's throat as he took a sip from his drink. "Well, there might be a few odd dreams."

Rhodey nodded sagely. "Dreams are gonna happen. Killing is a very hazardous business to be in. It's a huge difference between dealing in arms and actually using them." If there was one friend that Tony had who understood the guilt that came with fighting in a war it was Rhodey. Even though the wars he had fought in hadn't been waged against Chitauri he still knew what it felt like to be forced to kill someone and still see the humanity within them.

Tony noted flippantly,"Hey, don't treat me like I'm new at this game. I've been shutting down psychopaths ever since I built myself this suit."

Rhodey shook his head, taking a sip from his beer, "Not like this you haven't. You've contained people and killed robots. There's no blood when you kill a machine, no knowledge that they had a family and a life outside of the war."

"Yeah well, I wouldn't call the Chitauri exactly living beings. They look and behave more like B list sci-fi extras."

"No, but the crazy bastard Loki was definitely alive. I saw the pictures across the newspapers- he looked pretty damn human to me." 

Tony made a noncommittal grunting noise and took a sip from his drink, his eyes scanning the TVs above the bar while his ears were intently trained on Rhodey's words. His friend's words seemed to put a pinpoint on something that had been bothering him for a while. How could someone who did such horrific damage seem so human? Tony wasn't one to let himself go soft with sympathy, but the looks of pain and panic that flashed across his face during their talks sometimes looked so genuine that it was hard to remember that the man was a sociopath.

"You even traveled with his brother for a while so you had time to hear some real humanizing stories about him."

Tony smirked, "They're not exactly close."

"It still effects you because you got invested Tony. I know you like to pretend it doesn't, but I'm here if you ever want someone to listen-”

"He said we were alike, you know." Tony said, the words escaping from his mouth before he was fully aware he was saying them. No taking them back now, the only way out of this conversation was forward.

Rhodey stopped, stunned, "Who said you were alike?"

"Loki, the crazy bastard alien."

"That's who I thought you meant." Rhodey took a sip of his beer, finishing it, "Listen, I'm sure you know he lies all the time. You don't need me to tell you that." He scrutinized Tony's face, "Is that what has been bothering you?"

Tony ordered another drink for himself, watching a travel commercial play on the TV. "What if he's right?"

A breath that Tony didn't realize Rhodey was hold was blown out through his mouth in a long sigh, "He's not. Loki made a choice to destroy. You made a choice to sacrifice and save; there's a huge difference."

The genius' head turned away from the bar's TV and towards his friend, trying to find words for the complicated thoughts running through his head. "I know that it's just something that my dreams have been focusing on." He left out that part where Loki's lips were pressed to his and the sense of satisfaction that came with that kiss. Some things were better left in private and Tony didn't have nearly enough to drink to justify spilling those types of feelings in the middle of public bar.

Rhodey's eyes softened with pity and Tony felt a fiery spur of indignation fueled by whiskey enter into his veins. He hated the feeling of being pitied, especially by friends. This was why he didn't like talking about his feelings with people; they always gave him those pitying eyes that made him want to punch them. He turned his attention back to the travel infomercial on the TV. "Man, you need to get out of NYC."

Tony's eyes caught an image on the TV that made the hair on his skin stand on end. There was the image he had seen out of the restaurant’s windows in his dream. He recognized the distinctive many spired church with many faceted circular windows that he had seen and watched intently. Dimly he heard Rhodey telling him how NYC was toxic because he was always surrounded by the wreckage of what happened; that he wouldn't be able to move on while still having to see the after effects every day. The words "Visit Granada" flashed across the screen and Tony nodded.

"You know you're right. I think I will visit Granada; I'm in the mood for some tapas and wine. You want to come with?"

Rhodey grimaced, "You know some of us have jobs we need to worry about."

Tony shrugged, taking his wallet out of his pocket and flipping a couple bills onto the bar, "Your loss." He said with a grin, walking out of the bar with a new direction to go in. If he didn't know better than to believe in fate he would have sworn that advertisement was put there on purpose.

Tony didn’t know how it had gotten to this point, but he knew that this was the point of no return. He could entertain the idea that he was only scientifically interested in Loki while the god had been visiting him in New York – when you see someone that you have very recently put in prison wandering about like nothing ever happened it tends to pique your interest. Now that he was sitting on his private plane getting ready to fly eight hours on a hunch that had gotten from a dream he knew that it was more than a scientific interest, though he would never admit that fact to anybody else. Even now he was trying to logic away his decision to go on this mad journey the way that he did any of his other poor decisions- that it would be fun in the end, that he had been working too hard, that this would be good for his mind. The years of hardcore partying had engraved these lines of logic so deeply into his mind that it felt like coming home to be able to rest upon them again.

His memories flickered over the dreamscape that he had wandered through with Loki. He tried very clearly to picture inside of the restaurant, the orange walls and the dim candlelight were appealing but he had to look past all of that. He looked past the immediate scene and into the window of the room they had been in. He looked at the cobblestone streets and the mass of elaborate buildings outside and wished that he could explore farther, but he knew that the confines of the dream had kept him in this building.

He remembered the way that Loki had smiled at him and felt something turn inside of him, though it was such a mass of emotions that it was hard to pick one apart from the others. There was disgust, though at the god or himself for entertaining such company it was hard to tell. There was anger because Loki of all people had no right to smile after all the hell he had put everyone through. It was because of Loki that Tony had seen mothers crying in the streets for their lost children. It was because of Loki that Tony still woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with his heart racing as he remembered staring down that huge monster in the sky. There was some despair that came with the realization that all of this suffering and panic would still be coming more and more.

Somewhere beyond all the negative emotions curiosity stirred. Loki knew that no one on earth held him in high regard. He knew that Tony knew his brother personally and could call him at any time to send Loki back to the icy prison from which he hailed. Yet still Loki had chosen Tony very specifically to talk to and confide in. Why? Loki had once said they were alike, but there had to be dozens of bitter rich boys with daddy issues that he could have latched onto that were a lot less of a health risk, but Tony had been his choice. There had to be more than a simple feeling of kinship with the man who kicked his ass, and Tony didn’t have the brain power currently to think of the complexes involved to get to that line of logic in the first place.  
He supposed no one would know but Loki. He hoped at the end of this plane ride there would be answers, or at the very least dinner.


	7. Granada

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finally gets to Spain where he begins his search for Loki. He finds him and what follows is a dinner that escalates far quicker than Tony was expecting. Tony can't decide if he wanted to kill Loki or sleep with him and he is not sure when the second option ever became an option.

Tony wandered the streets of Granada, Spain determined to find Loki. He did not travel all of these hours only to leave as empty handed as he came. Somewhere the trickster god was there, waiting for him, and he knew that he had a day or so to find him. Hungrily his eyes searched every building looking for some trace of his drinking companion, but the sun kept moving across the sky and he found no trace of it. After a few hours he began to feel foolish for running halfway across the world for a dream, however vivid the dream might be. He had done more foolish things, but not in a very long time. Pepper was going to kill him for -Oh, the realization hit him hard across the face. He had left without saying a word to her. Surely he was going to get reamed out when he got back to her. Mentally he started preparing his apology as he wandered the streets, but then a familiar looking building chased all of those thoughts out of his head.

When Tony found the restaurant that he had seen in his dreams the sun had long since set and a dim orange light shone over everything. Only the sound of wind blowing through curtains greeted him as his eyes adjusted to the room which was mostly dark. Maybe he had gotten the place wrong and had just been seeing things, but it looked so familiar. He wandered deeper into the building heedless of the darkness within. Tables were everywhere, but none of them occupied. In fact no one was in this restaurant, not even a waiter or host. In the center of the room was a single table with a candle lit in the middle. Tony walked closer, halfway waiting for an attack to come as he did so.

No attack came as he approached, which left his nerves feeling more uneasy than if a blow had been rained down upon him. From behind him a sibilant voice sounded, "Glad you could make it, Mr. Stark. I was beginning to worry that you wouldn't show."

Tony turned around and there was Loki, dressed in a green silk button down shirt that was open just enough to show bits of his pale chest and black slacks. Even as he tried to maintain his anger Tony had to admit that the man looked good in a suit, he didn't wear it as well as Tony himself but he still looked damn good. He gave a slight bow towards Tony and laughed at his incredulous expression. "Expecting a dagger?" He asked as he took a seat.

"What the hell did you do to the people who work here?" Tony asked warily. Restaurants like this didn't just coincidentally end up completely empty.

Loki raised an eyebrow as he poured himself a glass of red wine, "I did absolutely nothing."

"I find that real hard to believe." Tony said, his fists clenching at his sides. He had been a fool for not seeing Loki's tricks ahead of time. Surely the man who terrorized New York had captured the people who worked here and had just invited Tony there to taunt him, to remind him that he was still on the loose and that Tony had let him get away with it.

The god smiled at him over his glass as he took a sip of wine, "The staff did not seem to want to stick around after snakes were found in the kitchens. The whole place was shut down. Quite the tragedy, but it does leave us unsupervised as a side effect." He looked at Tony and motioned to the chair across from him, "Come now, take a seat. We can hardly be expected to have a civil dinner if you insist on standing the whole time."

"Yeah and I'll believe that I'm supposed to be eating dinner at the staffless restaurant when Hell freezes over."

"I think that happened several years ago, or so I have on good authority, I have never been there myself." Loki laughed at the joke that only he seemed to understand. "Trust me, I have my ways of making sure that things are taken care of if you are worried about food. I may have a sleight talent for magic."

The idea of eating food that Loki himself had prepared just made Tony flash to all the bad Shakespeare plays that he had pretended to read in high school where everyone ended up dead at the end. "I'm not so sure I like the ways you have things taken care of."

Loki made a broad sweeping motion with his arm, "If you are so worried, you can check the kitchens yourself. Make sure that the evil pariah hasn't brainwashed the cooks into doing their jobs. I assure you though; you will find it quite empty."

"Maybe I will. Forgive me if I don't just take you at your word after all your open honesty." Tony said, turning on his heel away from the table. Loki opened up a menu and started to peruse it disinterestedly as if somehow expecting to order something directly from it even with all the staff somehow banished. The mortal made his way through every crevice of the restaurant and everywhere he was met with the same emptiness. He would have thought it a trick or a dream but he could hear the sounds of the world going on outside of the windows and the lighting didn't seem right for a dream. Perhaps Loki was actually telling the truth about the restaurant being shut down. This revelation should have put him more at ease but instead it only made him feel angrier, like he was getting conned and didn't realize it. That meant that Loki had gone out of his way to make sure that everyone was out, to get Tony alone. 

He knew that he should just leave, that this was a bad idea but all the same he made his way back to the table where Loki was still waiting. "Find any demons to vanquish there, Mr. Stark?" He asked with a smile that was halfway a taunt.

"No. Fresh out." He stated stubbornly.

"Then take a seat if you will." He said, gesturing again with impatience edging in on his words.

Tony took a seat and picked up the menu, even though half of him wanted to walk out of the door at that very minute. Loki poured him a glass of wine as he was refilling his own glass. Though his eyes were reading words he only halfway was reading them, instead his gaze kept wandering to Loki's face watching as he scanned the room idly.

"So how does this work?" Tony asked when the silence got to be too much for him, putting down his menu, "You just, what? Appear in my dreams and hope that I show up somewhere halfway across the globe to eat dinner in a more or less abandoned restaurant?"

Loki shrugged, "It worked didn't it?"

Tony gave a slight laugh, "I guess you have a point." He took a sip of his wine and was surprised by how good of a vintage it was. Even though wine was not typically his drink of choice you didn't drink as long as Tony had without recognizing when something was good. In the light the reddish color looked a bit like blood.

Loki eagerly drank in that blood and looked at Tony with a glint in his eye that said he had believed that he had won some victory, "Do you know what you wish to eat?"

Tony nodded, "What I don't get about you is why a supposed god like you is bothering hanging around these shitty mortal joints? I highly doubt you came all of this way for sea bass."

Loki raised an eyebrow, "I am hardly welcome in all of the other realms. I am sure you can ascertain that given how eager my own brother was to turn upon me."

"Can't imagine why."

"What do you desire to eat?"

"Sea bass." Tony said, watching the other man very closely for the trick.

"Very well then." Loki said and he snapped his fingers. A gentle glow began to light up on the table as two small circles inscribed with runes began to activate. Within a few moments the glow had faded and two plates were in their place, Tony's filled with a lovely sea bass dish that was identical to what was on the menu, at least given the little blurb that they had written about it to entice people to buy it.

"How did you do that?" Tony asked as Loki occupied himself by putting a napkin onto his own lap and arranging his silverware, clearly he was so used to this type of magic that it had become boring to him. At least that answered how a pariah fended for himself when the whole world was against him and trying to hunt him down.

"It's a simple runic circle made to summon objects. I wrote in runes for creation and channeled my will into it, focusing upon sea bass until it manifested." He said, discussing breaking the laws of physics as easily as some would discuss the weather. His bright green eyes flickered up to Tony, "You can eat it. I swear I have not poisoned it."

There was a moment where Tony contemplated shoving the plate to the ground, but his hunger and his curiosity got the better of him. Surely if the god of chaos wanted him dead he would find a better way to do so than inviting Tony out to dinner and summoning him food. It was perfectly prepared, probably a lot better than the actual chefs could do and with no wait. If it wasn't done by magic and it wasn't done by Loki Tony would have spent his whole dinner trying figure out how to market these summoning circles for everyone; it certainly beat waiting all night for your food to get out.

Loki's words jolted him out of his reveries. "So what does one do for fun on Midguard?"

Tony shrugged, "Me? Can't speak for everyone but I stop megalomaniac bastards who want the world to bow at their feet with a suit I built myself every Tuesday and-"  
Loki raised an eyebrow; sounding bored "Is that truly what is considered fun here? That sounds like work." He chuckled, "Here I was hoping the standard of parties and mayhem were the standard of the Realms."

"Somehow I doubt that your definition of party and mine are exactly the same." Images of the bloodbath that had followed Loki's and Tony knew that wasn't the only time that Loki had celebrated in such a way. Before Thor had left he had taken them all out for drinks in a bar much nicer than the one where Tony had met his brother. It was a joyous night when the glow of victory was still fresh upon their minds, the magical time right after a fight where your wits have been recovered and reality has yet to set in. Sometime during those drunken ramblings Thor had begun to tell childhood stories of Loki, how he was always the weird one growing up and when he was a teenager they stopped inviting him to parties because he would cause fights- never directly mind you but somehow people would always end up fighting around him. Tony's idea of a good night out didn't involve a fist fight, well most nights at least. In the back of his mind he made a note to try and see if he could contact Thor to try and get more specific details out of him.

"You should let me show you some time what my definition of party is. I think you would be surprised." If Tony didn't know better he would swear that Loki was being sincere with his offer, but he knew better. He knew that somewhere there had to be a trick to it, a catch that he just wasn't saying. Surely this had to be a way to get him to be disgraced, although Loki had gone through a lot of trouble to arrange all of this just to get Tony to fall from grace he figured that time was no matter to a semi-immortal man with a god complex.  
"What, are you trying to ask me out on a date or something?" Tony laughed, trying to lose the images still stuck in his head of Germany, "If so this is one of the most desperate attempts-"

Loki's laughter cut him off, "Mr. Stark, is that not what we are on currently? If you make it a habit to fly to another country to eat a candlelit dinner with a man who was in your dreams feel free to correct me."

The dinner suddenly tasted a bit like ash as Tony felt anger welling up inside of him, though anger at himself or at Loki's words he couldn't tell. Rage began to make some color go to his face and he knew he had to look like he was blushing even though the cause was not embarrassment. He rose to his feet and Loki joined him in doing so, crossing the distance between them. "This isn't a date. I just like keeping an eye on people who tried to kill entire cities in a temper tantrum."

He expected to be met with rage, but instead a brief look of sadness flickered over Loki's face before it was covered with a darker rage, "If I wanted the city dead, I would have killed them all and bathed in their blood. Killing the city was never my intention. Do not presume to know what I was thinking at the time of the attack on New York City."

Tony laughed a cruel laugh at took a few steps closer, "From where I'm standing it doesn't rightly matter what your thoughts were at the time. You still slaughtered a lot of people at that doesn't go away just because that wasn't your intention."

"Watch your tongue, Mr. Stark." Loki growled, the taunt gone out of his voice and replaced with a threat.

"Or what? I took you down once and I can do so again." Tony grabbed the front of Loki's shirt, his body moving of his own accord. He wasn't sure what he was going to do after that but his mouth kept running regardless of what his logical mind wanted. "You walk into my life, my planet and start trying to disturb my peace and then claiming this is a date. That takes balls."  
"You chose to keep coming back to that bar. You didn't have to drink with me all those nights." Loki replied, pushing his body against Tony's. His legs moved backwards 'til the backs of them nudged a table. "Don't you try to put all of this on me, like I was forcing you to do all of this. I never forced you into this date."

Anger burned hot in Tony's veins and he knew he needed to act upon it somehow lest it consume him. He didn't want to punch Loki, not and lose the-whatever the hell this was between them, but he was standing too close to do much else. His thoughts were not moving clearly, all of them yearning for action. "You still think this is a date? Fine!" He pulled Loki closer spitefully and drove his mouth into the other man's, feeling the fire ignite within him as the kiss was returned. His hands moved through Loki's black hair and he pressed him closer. He bit the other man roughly on the lower lip and felt him respond with a small moan. Tony broke off the kiss and stared at Loki with a challenge in his eye, "Is that what you want from me?"  
Loki moved an arm behind him and knocked the setting from the table to the ground. With a swift motion he pressed his weight into Tony and Tony gave way underneath him, allowing himself to be roughly driven into the table. Loki's hands moved to his shoulders and held him down for a moment before pouncing upon him. His tongue went into Tony's mouth as his hands ran up and down the other man's body, feeling his muscles through his clothing tense up. Though this scene, or one like it, had replayed in Tony's dreams having it actually happen in person was quite a different experience. He could smell the wine and something like thyme drifting off of Loki this close up and when Loki broke off the kiss he eagerly drank in the air. Loki rained kisses down on his jaw line, moving lower down to his neck. There he drove his teeth in roughly sending a pleasant gasp up from the other man and even in the moment Tony knew that spot would bruise. At the moment though, he didn't care about the bruise.

He could hear Loki's breath in his ear as he lowly whispered, "Oh I want far more than this from you Mr. Stark, and I know," his hands moving over Tony's groin where he was beginning to get excited from all the heat and the heady feel of Loki's teeth on his neck, "That you want more than this too. But not yet, all of it in time." His teeth played upon Tony's ear and he trembled a little, wanting nothing more than to have Loki pin him to this table and take him now. Outside a car horn blared.

Suddenly Tony realized what he was doing and with whom as the car reminded him of the outside world. This was not some mere fantasy in a dream; this was real life where he was currently making out with the man who had tried to kill him not all that long ago. He shoved his shoulder forward and Loki moved backward to allow him to move. The Man of Iron sat up and looked around, feeling angry that he had let himself get this far. He began to move towards the door, ignoring Loki calling after him. He needed air; he needed to get away from here before he did something stupid- well worse than he had already done.


End file.
